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Norweigan oil fund

nbim.no

231–240 of 339 posts

Re: Norweigan oil fund

#231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But what to say about Americans, who squandered natural resources to help the rich, and now the funding to their own social security is en route to insolvency?

A fundamental difference is that for Americans, natural resources are owned by the individual property owner rather than the state. If you find oil on your land in the US, it is yours and you decide what to do with it. In most other countries if there is oil on your land, the government has the exclusive right to oil (or other sub-surface minerals).

Lol. No.

Usually where there are significant amounts of minerals, there are separate mineral rights. Mineral rights trump surface ownership, and usually the rights were sold off decades or centuries ago. If you find something under your property, it probably doesn't belong to you.

Also, state laws vary in weird ways. Should you find gold in New York, it's the property of the state.

Re: Norweigan oil fund

#232

One of the most mind blowing things to me, is that where I'm from (Canada) we've pumped almost 2.5 times more oil and gas than Nowrway over the past 30 years, yet our "oil fund" is somewhere around $20 Billion. Norway decided the benefits of resource extraction should be universal, while my country decided that the benefits should go to the wealthy and multi-national corporations.

Same as the UK. This was an opportunity squandered, and we can only look to Norway and think of what might have been

Re: Norweigan oil fund

#234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oil isn't going anywhere soon, this is the least evil thing you can do and we should do so with all oil money.

So I'm supposed to believe that a certain party in the US wants to rip out all of our infrastructure reliant on oil and completely replace it with something new..because fossil fuels will destroy the world in 10 years. Yet Norway, which is pumping out said oil and making billions of dollars in the process, is perfectly okay because they are using a fraction of it for renewable energy research? Climate change has noth…

I don't think anybody says "Norway pumping all that oil is good, US pumping all that oil is bad".

What people are saying "Norway use of limited resource exploitation proceeds is good, every other government sucks at it even when not outright corrupt".

What is admired here is prudent fiscal management, a government that is apparently not corrupt and not sold out to corporate interests, and just a rare example of whole country looking further than their own nose.

You can object to the source of the money but you can't object to the way they use it.

Re: Norweigan oil fund

#235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if it's about being developed, vs being about having a high-trust society? In a lot of places people will immediately get suspicious if you say you're setting up a government fund to hold everyone's money. For the benefit of society, of course.

It's about Norwegian climate: you don't work - you freeze to death in winter. In a dozen of generations an idea that everyone must work hard becomes an obvious thing.

Norwegian climate in the most populated areas isn't particularly harsh.

Re: Norweigan oil fund

#236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if it's about being developed, vs being about having a high-trust society? In a lot of places people will immediately get suspicious if you say you're setting up a government fund to hold everyone's money. For the benefit of society, of course.

It's about Norwegian climate: you don't work - you freeze to death in winter. In a dozen of generations an idea that everyone must work hard becomes an obvious thing.

Worked out a bit differently for Russia.

Re: Norweigan oil fund

#237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could ask a similar question of the UK.

This is a question I ask. The UK policy was, effectively, 'paaarty!'

Sad but true. One shining light in this dismal situation however is that Shetland managed to do something similar to Norway: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.scotsman.com/news-2-15012/g...

Re: Norweigan oil fund

#238

One of the most mind blowing things to me, is that where I'm from (Canada) we've pumped almost 2.5 times more oil and gas than Nowrway over the past 30 years, yet our "oil fund" is somewhere around $20 Billion. Norway decided the benefits of resource extraction should be universal, while my country decided that the benefits should go to the wealthy and multi-national corporations.

Ha. Here in the US where we produce more than double what Canada does, there isn't even an oil fund.

In Alaska they do, they just pay it out every year.

Re: Norweigan oil fund

#239
post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The corruption was there before the military coup. I think the only coup that did not involve prior corruption was the one against Mosaddegh (and still, the country was still corrupted from his predecessor). Also this was probably the coup that finished any hope of peace and democracy in the middle east.

Not many people here probably know who Mosaddegh was. So for context, he speaks of the 1953 CIA backed coup against the iranian elected president Mosaddegh, who nationalized the oil from foreign companys. Which the foreign companys and their governments did not like. But, I am not sure if all would have been peace and harmony without that coup. Sudden oil richness in a very, very poor society, is just very hard to do…

It’s possible, but since we made it a priority to mess them around for decades, we will never know what would have happened.

Re: Norweigan oil fund

#240
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Norway was lucky to be a very developed society before oil was discovered. In most countries oil is a curse

I wonder if it's about being developed, vs being about having a high-trust society? In a lot of places people will immediately get suspicious if you say you're setting up a government fund to hold everyone's money. For the benefit of society, of course.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse
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